WUNRN
World Pulse - http://www.worldpulse.com/magazine/articles/truth-consequences-in-the-caucasus?page=0,0
JOURNALISM, TRUTH, CONSEQUENCES -
RUSSIA & NORTH CAUCASUS
Despite the assassinations of many of her colleagues,
"People often ask me if it frightens me to do what I do, after so many of my friends have been killed. Yes, I am afraid. But not for my own life."
· I
clearly remember the day I learned that my friend and coworker, Anna
Politkovskaya, had been murdered. I was in my office working on the upcoming
issue of
The news was shocking, and yet absolutely
predictable. Like many of us at Novaya
Gazeta, Anna had balanced on the borders of life and death for a
very long time—so long that we had grown accustomed to the threat of her death.
It was October 7, 2006. Anna, who was then
By 2006, most journalists had simply
stopped going to
The night I learned of Anna’s death, I
stayed up all night and thumbed through the archives of Novaya Gazeta, going back
to 1999 when Anna started working for the paper. I searched through her
articles to find her most important works. But Anna didn’t write anything
unimportant. She wrote about people’s pain and grief, while ruthlessly
criticizing Russian and Chechen authorities for their policies and actions. In
total, Anna wrote 500 articles for Novaya
Gazeta. And that’s why she was killed.
Not long before her death, Anna told me
that she would soon be a grandmother, and that she would soon be pulling back
from her work because “grandchildren make life worth living.” But she never met
her first grandchild, who was born in February 2007 and who bore her name.
After her murder, I picked up where Anna
left off and began traveling to
In
July of 2009, without telling anyone about my trip, I traveled to Chechnya to
investigate reports of extrajudicial killings with my friend, human rights
activist Natasha Estemirova. I will never forget my last conversation with her.
It was the evening of July 13, just hours before I boarded a plane to return to
Moscow. Deep into the night we discussed the situation in Chechnya and the
Northern Caucasus.
At
the end of the conversation, I told Natasha that the situation in Chechnya had
become extraordinarily dangerous. “You need to leave,” I told her. “You have to
stop for a while and take care of your 15-year-old daughter.” I recall that one
of us even joked that it would be a shame if she were killed before she had the
chance to write a book about Chechnya.
I
departed for Moscow on July 14, while Natasha stayed behind. On July 15 Natasha
was abducted and killed.
It
has been nine months since Natasha’s murder. There is no doubt she was killed
for exposing abuses by law enforcement and security agencies in Chechnya. We
know who shot her, and who issued the order. The investigating officers know,
too. But her killers are under the protection of the Kremlin and are
untouchable. It is the same with Anna Politkovskaya’s case. After more than
three years, no one has been punished.
People
often ask me if it frightens me to do what I do, after so many of my friends
and colleagues have been killed. Yes, I am afraid, but not for my own life. I
intend to continue my work in Chechnya and the Northern Caucasus region. I’m
more afraid of the consequences of not exposing the truth than I am of dying.
I
remember how the world reacted to Anna’s murder. International leaders demanded
that Russian authorities find and punish the guilty. International
organizations declared the murder of a journalist an unacceptable abuse. People
around the world took to the streets in memory of the fearless woman who was
brutally murdered for doing her job.
And
yet, what has changed? If anything, things are worse.
After
Anna’s death, a new time of killing began in my country. Human rights activists
and journalists are murdered in Russia with such frequency that news of the
next victim no longer excites the world. In the last year alone six activists,
political dissidents, and journalists were murdered. All of them worked toward
a common goal: to hold Russian security forces accountable for the unlawful
murder of civilians in the Northern Caucasus. I knew all six victims. Three of
them were my friends. I know that none of these murders will be investigated.
This
does not trouble or shame the Russian authorities. On the contrary, they
encourage assassins by giving them government jobs and granting them legal
immunity.
It
remains that journalists and human rights activists who still dare to speak the
truth are a headache for the Russian authorities. They look to the strongest
medicine available to escape accepting responsibility: assassination. A
medicine like that is addictive. The Russian authorities are hooked on it.
But
still the world is silent. And the silence scares me more than anything else.
—Translated by Maria Jett
Elena Milashina is a leading investigative
reporter for Novaya Gazeta and is based in Moscow, Russia. In 2009, she won the
Human Rights Watch Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism.
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